C412 Heavenly Ship!

On the island of the Demon Palace stood the Withered Bone Pavilion. A giant crow with sprawling gray wings lay on the ground, seemingly dozing off, when suddenly, its eyes burst with light, illuminating the dark chamber!

Xu Zixi, seated in a corner, jolted awake and asked, bewildered, "Raven Lord, what's happening?"

Energy surged from the crow's wings in countless streams, stitching the void with an invisible thread. The pavilion was suffused with a palpable demonic aura.

The crow's wings folded in, and within moments, he transformed into a gaunt middle-aged man in a long gray robe, his sallow face and high-bridged nose giving him an undernourished appearance. His grayish-brown eyes swiveled restlessly before regaining a hint of vitality.

"Raven Lord?" Xu Zixi called out tentatively, coaxing him back to the present.

"It's been a while since I've taken human form; I'm still adjusting," the Raven Lord, guardian of the Ember Waters, admitted. He extended a claw-like hand and yanked an object from the pavilion. It was an ice-blue crystal.

With a burst of light from the Raven Lord's fingertip, the crystal revealed the image of a massive sunken ship resting on the ocean floor, with Yu Yuan standing motionless before it.

"Yu Yuan..." Xu Zixi gasped, her eyes fixed on the tiny figure of Yu Yuan beside the colossal wreck. "Raven Lord, why are you showing him? This shipwreck has been here for thousands of years, hasn't it? It's been picked clean of anything valuable; there's nothing left."

The Raven Lord's eyes, a dull brown, sparked to life. "You don't know anything!" he snapped, glaring at Yu Yuan. "Look at what? There's nothing to see! It's just a wrecked ship; move along!"

Xu Zixi fell silent, perplexed. "Raven Lord, what's really going on?"

She was certain there was more to the story. She knew the Raven Lord well enough to understand that he wouldn't bother taking human form or showing concern for Yu Yuan and the ship without good reason.

The ship had come from beyond the stars. After being pierced and destroyed in the outer realms, it crashed through the cosmic barrier and sank to this place.

The Demon Palace records state that on the day the ship descended, a powerful cultivator from the Boundless Land removed the alien corpses and scavenged every last remnant.

For thousands of years thereafter, those who ventured to the Ember Waters for training stripped the ship of its stones, chips, seeds, and all else within.

Yet, in the last century, not a soul has managed to extract a single item of value from the vessel.

Yu Yuan stood motionless before the sunken ship. What could possibly have the Raven Lord so agitated?

Whenever the Raven Lord broke from his indolence and spewed profanities, it was a sure sign that something was about to unfold.

But what could it be this time?

"Damn that little pest!"

The Raven Lord erupted in fury, glaring at the ice-blue crystal and launching into a tirade, "Why don't you scram? What are you poking around in there for? There's nothing left!"

At that moment, Xu Zixi observed Yu Yuan pause before the submerged ship, then dive into its depths.

His actions sent the Raven Lord into a fit of nerves and foul language.

At last, at last...

Yu Yuan, enveloped by the ice-blue crystal, vanished into the ship's hold, out of sight.

The Raven Lord grew increasingly restless, cursing and stamping his feet in the skeletal palace, "What kind of fool just shows up and ignores the new fallen stars, lingering in this old haunt? And that ship, untouched for ages—what could he possibly want with it?"

"Raven Lord, can't you keep watching?" Xu Zixi prompted.

"Watch what?"

"To see what he's up to inside?"

"Watch my foot! If I could see, don't you think I would? Do I need you to tell me that?" The Raven Lord snapped at her with a scowl, "You damned human woman, you think you're smarter than me?"

"No, of course not," Xu Zixi replied, her expression bemused. Seeing his temper flare, she refrained from pressing further.

Privately, she too began to harbor doubts, suspecting that some secret lay hidden within the ship's interior.

She was well aware that the Raven Lord, given his demonic hierarchy, didn't need the Ice Blue Crystal to peer into the ocean's depths. His innate abilities allowed him to detect even the slightest disturbances caused by clashes of spiritual energy.

Yet, the Raven Lord resorted to using an artifact to observe the ship, and later claimed he couldn't discern any activity within it. The whole situation reeked of mystery.

After a bout of scolding, she sensed she might have gone too far, bordering on being unreasonable. The Raven Lord, with a forceful wave of his hand, exclaimed, "It's none of your concern! Don't take it to heart! There's something off about that sunken ship. You're not of high enough rank to be privy to the details, and it's not my place to disclose them."

"There is something off!" Xu Zixi's face fell as she spoke, "Raven Lord, as I've mentioned before, he has deep ties with Yu Zhu from the Absence Relic. If he runs into trouble in the Ember Waters, Yu Zhu on the other side..."

"Enough!" The Raven Lord snapped, his anger flaring again. "He won't encounter any trouble on that ship! Why on earth did this cursed human choose that ship out of the three places I can't see?"

...

Inside the sunken ship, Yu Yuan swam in, shedding his earlier lethargy.

In the pitch darkness of the ship's interior, he was all concentration, his eyes glowing as he scanned his surroundings in search of something.

Eventually, he made his way to the stern and found the rudder.

The ship was a wreck, riddled with holes and covered in cracks, yet the stern rudder remained untouched.

The round rudder, resembling a windmill forged from black iron, was designed to steer the ship.

Yu Yuan studied the rudder intently, pondering whether it was indeed the object in question.

In his past life, a mysterious friend from the Devil Palace had spoken of three enigmatic locations deep within the Ember Waters, each with its own secrets.

This ship was one of those places.

The mysteries within these three locations were closely guarded due to differing allegiances, and nothing could be revealed.

Yet, that same friend who had once roamed the islands with him had pointed out these three spots, sharing a few secrets. He had explained that the sentinels outside couldn't detect anything within these places with their eyes or souls.

They were, in essence, blind spots to both vision and spirit.

He had mentioned that the key to the sunken ship lay in its rudder, yet he had been vague on the details.

Yu Yuan was now at the rudder, inspecting it closely, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He quietly employed the Soul Forging Technique, but even with his keen intuition, nothing unusual presented itself.

Finally, he approached the rudder, placed his hands on it, and attempted to twist it with all his might. Despite his efforts, the rudder, heavy as it was, refused to budge.

Yu Yuan spent a long time examining it, to no avail.

He trusted that his old friend wouldn't deceive him; the ship's secret had to be connected to the rudder. The challenge was uncovering it and revealing the truth.

After a moment's contemplation, Yu Yuan steeled himself and caressed the Mustard Seed Bracelet.

A sheath, once belonging to a Chopping Moon cultivator and extracted from the massive white gold skull of an Asura in the Dark Domain, emerged from the bracelet.

As the sheath left the confines of the Mustard Seed Bracelet, the sunken ship seemed to stir.

Yu Yuan's grip on the sheath tightened as he felt a surge of movement from the sword light nestled at its base!

Since the Asura's residual soul had vanished and he had claimed the sheath, the sword light and intent had been dormant, sealed within. Even after the sword soul settled within him, the sheath showed no signs of life.

But now, as the sword intent and light within were liberated from the bracelet, they seemed to awaken, sensing something.

Without time to ponder, the sheath in Yu Yuan's hand pulled his arm, thrusting itself towards the ship's rudder!

Caught off guard and too late to react, he watched as the sheath's mouth unleashed condensed, piercing sword light, radiating with pure brilliance.

Simultaneously, the investigation by the soul consciousness of the Great Cultivators from the Demon Palace above triggered the vibrant scarlet sword light, which had been lying dormant in his bones, to burst forth like a dragon or a swift serpent.

“Whoosh!”

In the blink of an eye, he, along with his sword in its scabbard, vanished into the stern of the ship, never to be seen again.

…